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Microsoft reportedly accessed blogger’s email to trace rogue employee

A recent revelation about the lengths to which Microsoft went to track down a former employee who is charged with stealing trade secrets has some critics questioning the company’s ethics, and has put Microsoft on the defensive.

According to a document filed in court this week, Microsoft accessed the Hotmail account of a French blogger in September 2012. The blogger had a history of leaking screenshots and software releases before they were ready for public consumption, and the company suspected the blogger had received some of that information from its former employee, Alex Kibkalo.

It appears snooping in the blogger’s email was legal. A stipulation in Microsoft’s Hotmail privacy policy states that the company can access users’ emails to “protect the rights or property of Microsoft or our customers, including the enforcement of our agreements or policies governing your use of the services.”

Microsoft has issued several statements about its decision to look through a Hotmail user’s email. One to Mashable which came from an unnamed representative, states that searching someone’s email happens “only in the most exceptional circumstances.”

“We apply a rigorous process before reviewing such content,” the representative said. “In this case, there was a thorough review by a legal team separate from the investigating team and strong evidence of a criminal act that met a standard comparable to that required to obtain a legal order to search other sites.”

Mashable’s Christina Warren wondered if Microsoft wasn’t being a bit duplicitous, though, considering its harsh criticism of Google for how its rival collects user data.

Thursday night, Microsoft Vice President and Deputy General Counsel John Frank issued another statement about how the company is “evolving our policies” regarding privacy in Hotmail and Outlook. Frank says the company will use “standards applicable to obtaining a court order” and will publish information about email searches in its bi-annual transparency report.